As I was returning towards the house, after my long morning’s lounge, a man rushed out of the blacksmith’s shop, and catching me by the skirt of my gown, poured forth a torrent of self-gratulations on having at length found the ‘right missis.’  They have no idea, of course, of a white person performing any of the offices of a servant, and as throughout the whole Southern country the owner’s children are nursed and tended, and sometimes suckled by their slaves (I wonder how this inferior milk agrees with the lordly white babies?) the appearance of M——­ with my two children had immediately suggested the idea that she must be the missis.  Many of the poor negroes flocked to her, paying their profound homage under this impression; and when she explained to them that she was not their owner’s wife, the confusion in their minds seemed very great—­Heaven only knows whether they did not conclude that they had two mistresses, and Mr. ——­ two wives; for the privileged race must seem, in their eyes, to have such absolute masterdom on earth, that perhaps they thought polygamy might be one of the sovereign white men’s numerous indulgences.  The ecstacy of the blacksmith on discovering the ‘right missis’ at last was very funny, and was expressed with such extraordinary grimaces, contortions, and gesticulations, that I thought I should have died of laughing at this rapturous identification of my most melancholy relation to the poor fellow.

Having at length extricated myself from the group which forms round me whenever I stop but for a few minutes, I pursued my voyage of discovery by peeping into the kitchen garden.  I dared do no more; the aspect of the place would have rejoiced the very soul of Solomon’s sluggard of old—­a few cabbages and weeds innumerable filled the neglected looking enclosure, and I ventured no further than the entrance into its most uninviting precincts.  You are to understand that upon this swamp island of ours we have quite a large stock of cattle, cows, sheep, pigs, and poultry in the most enormous and inconvenient abundance.  The cows are pretty miserably off for pasture, the banks and pathways of the dykes being their only grazing ground, which the sheep perambulate also, in earnest search of a nibble of fresh herbage; both the cows and sheep are fed with rice flour in great abundance, and are pretty often carried down for change of air and more sufficient grazing to Hampton, Mr. ——­’s estate, on the island of St. Simons, fifteen miles from this place, further down the river—­or rather, indeed, I should say in the sea, for ’tis salt water all round, and one end of the island has a noble beach open to the vast Atlantic.  The pigs thrive admirably here, and attain very great perfection of size and flavour; the rice flour, upon which they are chiefly fed, tending to make them very delicate.  As for the poultry, it being one of the few privileges of the poor blacks to raise as many as they can, their abundance is literally a nuisance—­ducks,